Network operators constantly strive to improve the quality of their services in terms of Quality of Service (QoS) and Quality of Experience (QoE). QoE typically describes a quality perception from the perspective of a user browsing the Internet or rendering a video or audio stream that is received over a communications network from a media server. QoS primarily targets at providing benefits to a terminal operated by a user. These benefits may not, or not directly, be perceivable by the user. Still, QoS enhancements often at the same time result in a better QoE.
In the current 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) architecture, QoS and QoE are supported via the so-called bearer concept. Starting from Release 7 for 3G and Release 8 for Long Term Evolution (LTE), traffic differentiation takes place in the operator networks for QoS and QoE control. Traffic differentiation encompasses the distribution of available transmission resources (e.g., in terms of transmission bandwidth) among multiple user terminals. In general, the network operators take responsibility for setting up the appropriate set of bearers for an individual user terminal and for setting the associated bearer parameters so as to meet certain QoS and QoE targets.
For classifying data traffic and for assigning the classified data traffic to individual bearers for transmission resource distribution, in the downlink direction packet filters (e.g., via Traffic Flow Templates, TFTs) and Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) are commonly applied. The network operators may also upload TFTs to the user terminals to enable an assignment of data traffic to individual bearers in the uplink direction.
Today, an increasing amount of data traffic, such as Over-The-Top (OTT) data traffic, is encrypted. In this regard, end-to-end encryption technologies between the user terminals at the one end and the media servers at the other end are commonly used. Evidently, end-to-end encryption makes it difficult or even impossible for network operators to apply packet filtering or DPI for classifying the data traffic. Under such circumstances, the possibilities of the network operators for providing QoS and QoE enhancements via intelligent transmission resource distribution are significantly reduced.
It would therefore be desirable from the perspective of the network operators to provide traffic differentiation services also in cases in which it is not possible or not desired to implement data traffic classification on the network side. As mentioned above, end-to-end encryption would be one exemplary scenario in which data traffic classification cannot be applied in the operator network.